Botero’s Legacy Shines at Auction Despite His Recent Passing

Master Botero portrayed by Hernán Díaz in the sixties when he had already created his own language, the one that became his legacy – credit @mambogota/Instagram

The recently deceased Fernando Botero was the center of disputes at an auction in New York City as part of Christie’s Latin American art sale, in an evening that raised a total of $13 million.

The main lot of the auction was the oil painting “The Three Friends” by the Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, which obtained $1,623,000, more than 160% of its estimate, while the sale of two works by the Colombian Botero also stood out, “ In the Plaza”, for which $1,332,600 were paid, and “Man Eating”, which obtained just over 1 million, Christies reported in a statement.

The auction was planned before the news that the famous Colombian artist, recognized throughout the world for his sculptures and paintings of voluminous human figures, of humor and sensuality, died at the age of 91 in his residence in the principality of Monaco, last September 15.

The Colombian artist Fernando Botero died on September 15 at the age of 91 (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)

In 2022, Botero broke an almost unbeatable record as the highest-selling living Latin American artist, by selling the sculpture Man on Horseback for $4.3 million at a British Christie’s auction. The sculpture is made of bronze, and measures 3.5 meters. Although the work had already been auctioned for $1.84 million at Sotheby’s in 2016, the purchase in 2022 will increase its value by 135%.

Auctioneer Christie’s live sale of Latin American art, with works by modern and contemporary artists from the region, had numerous bids, with bidders in the room, by phone and online, and reached a total of $13,200,030, achieving 102% more than its estimate, the auction house detailed. Another highlight of the sale was the “Portrait of Anita Antunes (Diana Cazadora)” by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, which sold for $693,000, the AFP news agency reported.

With prices much lower than those of its counterparts in the region, Argentine art was represented by artist Guillermo Kuitca’s painting, “Untitled,” an almost two-meter-by-two-meter acrylic painting painted in 1998 that the author signed in the reverse and which sold for $94,500, without commissions or taxes, despite the fact that the estimated value was initially between $80,000 and $120,000.

Diego Rivera, another of the artists who participated in the auction (Wikipedia)

It is a work that is related to the long fascination that Kuitca has felt for theater, a connection that arose, in the artist’s words, “in part because of that idea of ​​the world as a stage.”

“I had formulated a kind of elementary axiom according to which nothing was possible in painting while, on the contrary, everything was possible in the theater,” said Kuitca, who has captured metaphysical maps and architectural plans in his works, reflecting on the way we locate ourselves in space and time.

Kuitca, internationally recognized, has exhibited his work at the MoMa in New York (1991), the Whitechapel gallery in London (1995), the Arts Club in Chicago (1999) and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid (2003), among other greats. international centers.

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2023-10-01 13:14:50
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